We Will Meet On Jupiter
by A. O. Talmidge
Summary: Dena was always considered an outsider due to her disabilities, but things get worse after her aunt has disappeared and she is placed in an orphanage, and paired with a navi that really dislikes her.


Dena walked through the doorway of the building that was to be her new home. _Rookland Orphanage_, the sign above the outside door had said. Except she was not an orphan. Not really.

Dena had been discovered seven years ago in a dense part of the Kiean Woods, a forest about six miles from a small town in the southern part of Brightland. After being brought there, eventually she had been taken in by a lady, Wrenn Hendersen. Dena had always called her Aunt Wrenn, since Wrenn had always said that was what she preferred. Dena never had the inclination to call her anything else. As she had been found, perhaps she did have a brother or sister or even some type of family somewhere, but she did like the person that had been willing to bring her in.

Her aunt had never even really minded about her slurred speech and weak legs, different from usual (or perhaps "usual" people), nor that could be be very quiet. She liked to be quiet a lot, except perhaps sometimes with a wheelchair bound friend named Travis, and his navi, Jido, or sometimes when she was excited. Sometimes when she started to talk fast, really fast, her aunt might tease and say something kind of oddly funny, such as her being a Pound Puppy on a spinning windmill on Mars. Dena would laugh (and hoped that the windmill would have sided seats), with her sure liking of Pound Puppies.

Then suddenly one day, her laughing aunt had not come home. Dena had suddenly noticed the time, six-thirty. Her aunt had said that she would be back from her errand in one half of an hour. She had left two hours before. Dena's legs were already tired from climbing up and down the stairs and around the house, trying to dust the main floor and upstairs, as her aunt had told to do, as well as playing with a small cat she had named Jina that she liked.

Usually she liked to play with Jina in the corner with the small wooden bookcase with the miniature skateboard on top, but that day she had spun around in small circles during the dusting, with her playing that Jina gathered a small treasure (which was fine to get) from each painting that she had dusted. It had been quite an adventure treasure hunt for Jina. Perhaps there was no need to worry about her aunt, as she dusted and played, then eventually waited as the dusting was finished and Jina was back in her little couch home on the shelf, but as three more hours ticked by, the sky almost dark, she did so.

She had limped to her neighbor's house, a friendly man from Taron, another country far away somewhere, and had told (or rather, tried) to tell him of the situation. She had stuttered so badly that she could even barely understand herself, though she usually never stuttered. With her speech already slurred, the person, Kojo, could not understand. He had eventually been able to guess what her problem was when he asked where her Aunt Wrenn was, though. He had even let her stay at his house, which was quite strange. It definitely was not her house.

Kojo was nice, and she was surprised when he gave her a small toy puppy to hold. It definitely was not a Pound Puppy, but she still had liked to hold the animal, and first stroked the back, then nestled it under her chin, like she had done sometimes with some of Travis's Pound Puppies.

A week later, her aunt had still not come back. It had been decided by the police station that the best option then was to put her in a nearby orphanage- not exactly nearby, since it was nearly fifty minutes away from her school, and about one hour and fifteen minutes from her house, but kind of close. Certainly not close enough to walk (not that she always could walk as much as other times, anyway.)

She waited in the large front hallway, and noticed some stairs nearby. How interesting; the stairs could lead to a secret hallway, with a secret passage, or even an invisible chamber with lots of books, or even a room or rooms with lots of Pound Puppies.

However, her legs were tired from walking again and again to and back from a room in the police station, then when she had followed one officer to a place that turned out to be not the orphanage, then more when the officer had suddenly been summoned to some odd task (she had heard something about a basketball and a couch, but was not really sure).

The officer had given her directions to the orphanage, which he had said would only take about ten minutes to walk. As Dena was generally not very good with directions, she had taken about four times that long to walk, and some more time with rests in between since her legs would not stop trembling, and also were quite tired. Someone had run to her after she had knocked on the door several times, as there was no doorbell, and since they had guessed that she was to live there, had said briefly that she could go in. She sat down now, next to her shoulder bag, hoping someone would not have her move too soon.

Of course, there was no such luck.

"Handersone?"

Dena looked toward the voice, hoping that it had nothing to do with her, and saw an older woman with her grey hair in a ponytail. She held a clipboard with some paper attached next to her side. Dena then looked down at the floor again.

"Handersone, get up. And pick up your bag, too; I am not having to pick that up after you, nor should anyone else."

Dena gripped the strap of her bag and slowly rose -or tried too, as her weakened legs trembled, then buckled slightly to the right, onto the floor. She then placed her right hand on the ground beside her bag, and pushed herself up slightly, then rose, trembling some, into a standing position. She then hefted her bag onto her shoulder without managing to fall down.

"My name is Hendersen," said Dena, since the person had not pronounced her name correctly.

The woman's brows crinkled together, and she frowned slightly, not kindly.

"What was that?" she asked.

"My name is Hendersen," Dena repeated. "It was not said correctly."

The woman sighed impatiently. "You are sure you are Handersone?" She stopped, then went on. "I am not sure what you mean by a 'crecky', nor what you said before that. You do, though, need to proceed to go upstairs. On the left, three doors down, you will find your room. You may wait there."

Dena did not move, but huffed and said, "My name is _Hen-der-seeeeen_," over pronouncing her last name. Why _again_ could someone not understand her? Yes, it was quite common, but the woman did not have her name correct. She could at least try to get that understood.

The woman spoke again. "Once again, I do not know what you said, but you will go upstairs for now. I am also Mrs. Kimpdun, the head of this orphanage. You are to know that. Do you have a navi?", she added.

Dena shook her head. "_Hen_dersen," she said again.

"Hendersen?", Mrs. Kimpdun, said, incredulously.

Dena nodded, glad to be finally understood. "My name is that."

The woman did not look gladdened by the revelation that she had been corrected. "Well, then, I suppose that you are to mean that Hendersen is your name then. Someone had written it incorrectly. I ask again, though. Are you in possession of a navi?"

Dena shook her head again. She had never asked for nor had one.

"Well, then, you will be assigned one shortly. There have been some odd happenings around this orphanage, and now it is procedure that all orphans here are in possession of one, for safety. Now, go upstairs."

She turned away and only started to briskly walk away, toward some room beyond the hallway once Dena started to move.

Dena was not sure about the "odd happenings" that the head person had mentioned, but hoped that they would not be too frightening. For now, though, she worried about the stairs. She climbed them slowly, falling once near the middle, glad there was a railing to hang on to; there was even one on both sides, similar to her own house.

She finally stumbled to the top and into the hallway, leaning against one of the wooden walls. Now, which one was her room? She came upon a chart in the hallway, marked "New Arrivals", but the chart was so marked over, she could barely the names, and was not sure how useful it would be for finding her room would be anyway.

A door slammed, and a boy with black hair came pounding down the hall. He stopped at her.

"Are you looking for your room?" he asked, grinning.

Dena nodded.

The boy laughed some, and then said, "Well, then, how about over there? He pointed to the wall. "You know, just hop on through and you will eventually crash through . . . maybe three weeks later." He laughed again, then ran off down the stairs.

Dena sighed. Had the head person said three or two doors to the left? She tried the third door, and luckily, it was empty, and even more luckily so, there was a note taped to the wall with her first name and _Handersone_ afterward messily written on it.

She turned around, and even without taking the bag off of her shoulder, lay on the bed.

There was the thud of running footsteps, and a girl with a brown ponytail ran into the room.

"Here's your PET," she called out, put something quickly on a small table, then dashed straight out of the room again.

Dena laid her head down on her arms again. She was just so tired . . .

Suddenly, another new voice spoke up.

"Hey, you, over there. Are you just going to leave the PET over here?"

Dena shifted her head sideways, and slightly upward. Above the object on the small table was a small, floating, colored and slightly transparent figure. She had seen the sort of sight with Jido, but it was strange that one would be speaking to her like this, sort of. The table, of course, was all the way across the room, and she also saw that the girl who had come in had left the door open.

Dena, groaned slightly, then moved off the bed, gingerly standing up. She walked slowly across the room, bent slightly and her right hand on one of legs, which both did not want to cooperate much then. She limped toward the door and closed it, then moved to go toward the table. The navi had not stopped staring at her the whole time.

The PET on the table was small and medium brown, seeming to be the same type that Travis's was, except that his was black. The navi herself was covered in dark green armor with light blue stripes, and had a crest with light blue lightning-type streaks across it.

Dena moved more toward the table and suddenly, without warning her legs suddenly gave way and she toppled onto the ground. There was no reaction from the navi, and when she tried to sort of quickly stand back up and looked at the navi, she was met with a sort of expression that held not concern, but contemptment.

Dena quickly grabbed the PET and tried to hurry back toward the bed. She flopped on it, then sat up, her legs folded.

"So, then," the navi spoke up again, sounding sort or reserved but crossfully so, hovering nearby. "Your name is . . . Dehna? Dayna?"

Dena nodded, as the last pronunciation was correct, but before she say that (or try to), the green-armored navi again begin to talk.

"I'm Kira- Q-U-I-R-A, that is," she said, spelling out her name. "Do you like to . . . Have you even ever had a PET before?" she asked scornfully, looking at Dena awkwardly holding the device.

Dena shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

Quira scuffed. "'Lovely'. I spend three years being a servant to some prince guy, never even able to be in the front battle, and finally when I get to be with a net op, it is with some stupid head that is way below an amateur, and can't even walk. Great."

She huffed and disappeared quickly into the PET.

Dena lay slowly again onto the bed, wishing desperately that she was with Travis and Jido, that her aunt had never vanished to somewhere. Travis, even though he had not disappeared, was on a near summer-long trip to America to visit some of his cousins. She would not see and be able to play with him and Jido again until the summer was nearly over. She wondered how, if he had already sent a letter, it would reach her now at the orphanage. Would she even be able to send letters to him and Jido?

When Dena was around Travis, she liked to say some rather random and funny things. It was fun to do, and Travis might be laughing or even be kind of confused, but still be laughing. Sometimes, he said funny things also.

"We will meet again on Jupiter," he had said the day that he was to leave to America. She had grinned, saying something about exploring some caves with bouncy rocks and some slides that his Pound Puppies would be going quite fast on. Maybe he had not quite understood all of what she had said, but he sure had heard the "_boing boing boing_" part, and "_Eeeeeeeeeerm_", accented with her left arm going fast to the right, when talking about the Pound Puppies.

Any planet seemed quite far away right then, being at an orphanage with a new navi that really did not like her, but she smiled slightly when she pictured Travis, Jido, and her going down in tunnels on Jupiter.

"The tunnels seem _fun_," she whispered quietly, and then slept.


End file.
